Water levels on the river Lee have been irregular to say the least over the last few weeks, but they have been running water at 4pm most evenings this week at full load. I ventured up over the last few evenings and met about 12 salmon in the high fast water but when using single barbless hooks on flying c's its very hard to hold onto the fish for more than a couple of minutes especially when they want to head down stream at pace. Unfortunately you don't have the luxury of space at the dam and when the fish wants to go it goes very fast using the fast pace of the water to its advantage and as you try to put pressure on the barbless hook pops out especially as fresh salmon have soft mouths. The salmon I caught had pushed the single barbless hook through its mandible and caught the line on the other side enabling me to land the fish. It was a very fast fight beaching the salmon on grass as I was praying that the hook would hold till I at least touched the fish. It all went to plan and my first landed salmon of the 2022 season was accomplished not forgetting the other 12 that got away only due to the barbless hooks. Normally I might drop/lose one or two salmon in a season but 12 so far is just demoralising, the same last year but after about the fifth lost salmon I stopped fishing for salmon until I got my brown tag. Hopefully I'll get a brown tag in this draw and continue to fish normally and maybe do a video here and there, not like this one as the only video was on my phone when releasing the fish. It was a nice 9lb spring fresh fish, sealiced, wild with a bit of marking on the side from a bite more than likely a seal due to the size of the mark. I rested it for a few moments and released it back into the river to hopefully spawn the next generation of river Lee salmon. The upside of losing 12 springers is that its a good marker to the amount of fish moving through the system at the moment. Video of release is attached below.
Thursday 31 March 2022
Salmon fishing Ireland 2022
Water levels on the river Lee have been irregular to say the least over the last few weeks, but they have been running water at 4pm most evenings this week at full load. I ventured up over the last few evenings and met about 12 salmon in the high fast water but when using single barbless hooks on flying c's its very hard to hold onto the fish for more than a couple of minutes especially when they want to head down stream at pace. Unfortunately you don't have the luxury of space at the dam and when the fish wants to go it goes very fast using the fast pace of the water to its advantage and as you try to put pressure on the barbless hook pops out especially as fresh salmon have soft mouths. The salmon I caught had pushed the single barbless hook through its mandible and caught the line on the other side enabling me to land the fish. It was a very fast fight beaching the salmon on grass as I was praying that the hook would hold till I at least touched the fish. It all went to plan and my first landed salmon of the 2022 season was accomplished not forgetting the other 12 that got away only due to the barbless hooks. Normally I might drop/lose one or two salmon in a season but 12 so far is just demoralising, the same last year but after about the fifth lost salmon I stopped fishing for salmon until I got my brown tag. Hopefully I'll get a brown tag in this draw and continue to fish normally and maybe do a video here and there, not like this one as the only video was on my phone when releasing the fish. It was a nice 9lb spring fresh fish, sealiced, wild with a bit of marking on the side from a bite more than likely a seal due to the size of the mark. I rested it for a few moments and released it back into the river to hopefully spawn the next generation of river Lee salmon. The upside of losing 12 springers is that its a good marker to the amount of fish moving through the system at the moment. Video of release is attached below.
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